Oakland Raiders Watch Weeks 15 & 16

This is going to be a double edition of Raider Watch. I was unable to publish Week 15 because I was so depressed after week 14's loss to the Jags that I couldn't get out of bed. (I'm kidding of course.) I was so busy last week that I just wasn't able to get Week 15 out.

Well Raiders fans, It was fun while it lasted. I don't know if I should be be happily celebrating the Raiders best season since they made it to the Super Bowl eight long and frustrating years ago or if I should be just as frustrated as usual.

Week 15 was a must win for the Raiders. A win by Oakland and a loss by the Chiefs would have put the Raiders in control of the AFC West. Instead they dropped a must win that they should have won. If they had been out played by a better team n . . . well, that's just the way it goes. But the Raiders found a way to lose their most important game of the season to date.

I guess I was wrong when, back in November, I said In my Hub "Are the Raiders Legitimate Contenders for the AFC Championship.":

"I do think there was a turning point for the Raiders this season. I think it took place in their overtime victory over the then AFC West leading Chiefs."

My (apparently erroneous) point was that the Raiders had seemed to figure out how to win the close game, even when things don't go their way, the inability to do so has plagued them for years. We've seen it so many times as Raiders fans. They seem to have the game in hand, then, late in the game they implode.

Back in the days of Denver's dominance over the Raiders, Mike Shannahan was asked about Denver's winning streak against Oakland. His response was something to the effect of "all you have to do to beat the Raiders is stay close and wait for [the Raiders] to self destruct."

We haven't see much of that this season (complete late game collapses), but we have seen them fail to finish close games. We saw it against Arizona. With the game on the line Janikowski missed a 32 yard FG. He's usually all but automatic from that distance.

We saw it in Houston. Down by seven with less than three minutes left on the clock, Oakland had a 2nd and 3 at the Raiders 44. With the game winding down and a chance to tie it up and go into overtime the Gradkowski was called for intentional grounding resulting in a 13 yard penalty and a loss of the down.

Gradkowski followed his grounding penalty with two long passes. The first, intended for Heyward-Bey, fell incomplete. The second, intended for Murphy, which came on fourth-and-16 with about a minute-forty left on the clock and was intercepted by Houston's Troy Nolan.

We saw it in San Francisco, when the Raiders, down by one point allowed San Francisco to score with under eight minutes left. With the game still in reach, the Raiders went four and out, for minus four yards. On their next and final possession the Raiders ran 3 plays for seven yards ending the drive with Campbell throwing an interception on THIRD AND 3! In my humble opinion this was a coaching error and thus not entirely Campbell's fault. With Bush averaging 2.5 yards a carry in that game, more than 2 minutes left on the clock and a time out left, I think handing the ball to Bush and letting him pick up the 1st down would have been the better call. If he doesn't make it you still have another down. But then again, I don't coach the Raiders.

But for me, the most difficult loss in a close game was week 14's loss to the Jags. First, the Raiders squandered a 17 point lead, letting it melt away like Ice on asphalt on a hot July day. That alone is inexcusable in a game of that magnitude. Then when McFadden did what champions do, and put his team in a position to win by tying the game at 31 with less than two minutes left to play, the Raiders "special" teams and defense IMPLODED and let their sudden superstar down.

First, the kick return team allowed Deji Karim to return Janikowski's 65 yard punt, SIXTY FIVE YARDS!! They could have saved themselves and Janikowski the trouble and just placed the ball on the ground where the tee was and forgot about the kick! Then the defense, which has been one of the Raiders brighter spots even through the darkest years, inexplicably allowed Maurice Jones-Drew to ramble straight up the middle, practically untouched for the go-ahead touchdown. The entire drive took all of 19 seconds.

The good news was that the Raiders still had a minute and a half to score. That's when I saw it for the first time this season and it was incredibly frustrating. In a MUST WIN GAME, the must win game, with a legitimate chance to tie the game and go into overtime, the Raiders lacked the discipline and urgency you'd expect a team to have under those circumstances. They squandered the short one minuted and thirty-four seconds they had left and ended the game on a 16 yard pass that left them 23 yards short of the end zone when the buzzer sounded.

The Raiders had done it! Despite incredible games by Mcfadden (123 yards and 2 TD's on the ground, plus another 86 and 1 reciving) and Campbell (21/31, 324 yards Passing, 2 TD's and no INT's for a QB Passer rating of 127.6), They had fulfilled Shanahann's prophecy again. They had once more found a way snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

San Diego did their job trouncing the Chiefs 31-0. Had the Raiders won, they'd be in control of their own destiny, Instead they need an unlikely miracle to get into the playoffs.

So, what happens when the Raiders start to show promise and a Raiders fan wishes on a star for good things for the Raiders? . . . The star implodes and becomes a Black Hole!

Well they did it again. After playing like garbage against the Jags, Oakland pounded the Bronco's up and down the field.

If you didn't see it, the game was quite a surprise. Tim Tebow can play football in the NFL! I loved him in college, but I was drawn in the the so called "experts" opinion that he didn't have the arm strength or leadership ability to succeed in the NFL (now I remember why I usually ignore the "experts").

Tebow was brilliant, going 8 for 16 and a TD (QB Rating of 100.5). Tebow led the Bronco's in rushing yards going for 78 yards and a TD on 8 carries (including a ridiculous 40 yard ramble). But his unexpected brilliance just wasn't enough. Oakland, playing like the AFC West Champions they should be, trucked Denver 39-23 in a game that wasn't a close as the score.

Well, despite being 5-0 in the AFC West, following week 15 wins by Kansas City and San Diego, the Raiders are all but out of the AFC West Championship hunt and the playoffs.

I know, I know, there's still a very, very dim glimmer of hope in the center of the Black Hole. IF, and that's a monumentally BIG "if", Kansas City looses on Sunday to the Titans (not completely hopeless) and the Raiders beat the resurgent and equally as desperate Indianapolis Colts (maybe Payton Manning will miss the plane) and San Diego looses to either the 3-11 Bengals or the 3-11 Broncos (uhg! now you see why I say the glimmer is so dim?), then the Raiders-Kansas City game on January 2nd will be the AFC West Championship game.

So, GO RAIDERS!!!!!!! GO TITANS!!!!!! GO BENGALS!!!!!!!

There are Four things that the Raider Nation can celebrate no matter what happens in the next two weeks.  Darren McFadden, Michael Bush, Jacoby Ford and Marcel Reece!  

Finally Darren McFadden is becoming the player we all expected him to be when the Raiders drafted him with the #4 pick back in 2008!  

With 1,112 yards and two regular season games left, McFadden became the first Raider running back to rush for over 1,000 yards since Justin Fargas did it in 2007 and he has already surpassed Justin Fargus' total (1,009), Lamont Jordan (1,025 - '05) and Tyrone Wheatly (1,046 - '00). Not since Napoleon Kaufman, all the way back in 1997 (1,294 yds) has a Raider running back surpassed 1,100 yards!

With McFadden leading the way, the Raiders four headed running monster has piled up 1,856 rushing yards! Campbell added another 179 yards and the rest of the Raiders added 170 yards totaling 2205 yards on the season, for the #2 Ranked Running Offense in the NFL, with two regular season games to go!    

So, here's to the Future!